Chapter 22 #3
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” breathes Gabriel in a sing-song voice. He keeps his eyes on the moon in the sky, casting its faint, golden light in the room.
Meanwhile, Aaron walks around me, pressing his gun to my face.
“If she makes any move, any sign she’s trying something, you shoot,” orders Gabriel. “Don’t even hesitate.”
“Boss, you know me,” grins Aaron. “She’s as good as dead.”
“But not yet,” warns Gabriel.
“Sure, boss. Not yet.”
I’m far too worried about Damien to think about my own fate. I arch my entire body, as much as the ropes will allow, straining my eye, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Gabriel seems to expect him to be coming now. And Gabriel doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who’s usually wrong.
Suddenly, I hear the lightest crunch of a leaf outside the front door. Gabriel grows stiff, his finger firmly on the trigger, preparing to shoot. Aaron’s gun presses tighter to my temple.
“Be careful, Damien! It’s a trap!” I scream.
Aaron freezes. “What should I do, boss? Should I kill her?”
“Shut the fuck up!” hisses Gabriel.
But a moment later, all three of us forget everything but the front door that’s just banged open. I might have believed it was the howling wind that had gotten the best of the ramshackle door if it wasn’t for the shadowy figure standing right there.
I let out a strangled cry. Gabriel jumps out, lifts his weapon, and shoots, one, two, three times.
He doesn’t stop until his cartridge is exhausted.
My cry turns into crazed screams when I see the silhouette riddled with bullets.
Fear and horror seep deep into my bones as I try to wrap my head around the loss of the man I love more than life itself.
Gabriel was lying. He never intended a slow death. Or maybe he did, and chickened out at the last minute. Clearly, he’s terrified of Damien.
He edges closer to the fallen figure, nudges him around, and lets out a gasp.
I strain my neck, trying to understand what he’s seeing, but his looming body blocks it. Why would he be gasping at a cadaver? He must have seen many of them before.
A second later, he whirls around at the sound of another gunshot. This time it comes from behind me. I let out another cry, more surprised than horrified, wondering if Aaron has killed me after all. But I can’t feel any pain. And I’m still breathing.
Gabriel is staring at something behind me, his face contorted in fear. And one moment later, there’s a loud thump as a body crashes down beside me. I stare down at it and nearly sob in relief when I see the cavernous, lifeless eyes of Aaron staring back up at me.
Then I train my eyes again toward the door and see that the figure Gabriel had shot at was a coat, hanging over a sapling that must have been balanced against the large rock right outside. Now, both the coat and the sapling are on the ground, riddled with bullets.
It was a trick. Damien’s still alive.
“Fuck,” grunts Gabriel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
In two long strides he’s across the room, his gun pressed to my temple. “Come out, Damien! Come out and face me! Don’t be a fucking coward!”
But only the wind answers. He looks out the window, his gun still cocked at me threateningly, and yells, “Damien, if you don’t show yourself, I’m going to kill your pet!”
Nothing.
I close my eyes, willing my heart to stop racing. There is no answer to Gabriel’s threat, but when I glance up at the Angel leader, I can see in his wide, frenzied expression, that he’s capable of anything.
“I swear to God, I will kill her!” he lashes out again, his finger pressing on the trigger.
My heart is in my throat. I try to force myself to calm down, try to remember the way I felt just a little while ago, when I believed that dying was the only way to save Damien.
Now, I actually can save him. I can die, and save him.
But the thought of him out there makes my whole core twist with need. I can’t bear the thought of going now. All I want is for his body to wrap around me, for his fingers to thread through my hair, soothing me. For the scent of his cedar cologne, wafting over me. I want him.
“Please, Damien…” I whisper, but I’m not entirely sure what I’m begging for.
His voice seems to answer my quiet prayer, though I know it’s impossible. “If you kill her, there will be no hope for you,” he calls out from somewhere in the wilderness.
“Is there any hope for me anyway?” shouts Gabriel. “Might as well make you suffer on the way out.”
Damien’s voice floats back a moment later, taunting. “Oh, Gabriel. Always hiding behind others. Do you really think so little of yourself? Come out and face me, while you still have a chance. Come out and face the Devil.”
Gabriel swallows, staring down at me in deep thought, then at last, swings the gun away from me.
“I will be back,” he snarls. “I will be back, and I will end you.”
He creeps out of the cabin and I hear the crunch of his footsteps die down. At once, panic strangles me. Is the man I love going to die because of me?
I struggle against my bonds, more frustrated than ever at my own helplessness. All I manage to do is fall over, the chair clanking hard against the mud floor, my shoulder scraping against some hidden nails. I wince as I feel blood bubble up and burst out.
Then all of a sudden, my breath hitches.
Nails! Nails on the floor! Probably jutting out of the old, rotting planks hidden by years of grime.
Groaning with the effort, I manage to move my body a bit, my tied hands groping around, searching for the nails.
At last, they hit upon something hard and sharp, and at once, I position my wrists against the small metal objects and start to rub back and forth.
A sudden shot makes me still in panic. The next moment, I hear Gabriel’s voice. “Got you!”
I open my mouth in a silent scream and then, beads of sweat pricking down my forehead, I frantically rub the ropes against the nails until at last I’m able to break my hands free.
If there’s even the tiniest chance he’s alive… if there’s anything I can do to save him… I will.
It’s quick work now to undo the ropes around my ankles, and at last I’m free.
My eyes rove around for a weapon, and I spy the gun held in the deathly grip of Aaron.
But I’m not sure I’d be capable of shooting a gun.
Grimacing in disgust, I fumble through the pockets of his vest, until I find what I’ve been searching for: a small sharp knife.
My weapon of choice.
Then I burst out of the cabin just as another shot rings out.
He wasn’t dead yet. Could he still be alive?
As I go deeper in the forest that surrounds the tiny clearing, I spot Gabriel, standing a dozen feet away, facing the other direction.
“Where are you?” he thunders. “Stop fucking with me. Stand in front of me, and let the best man win!”
He aims his gun wildly into the forest, he shoots a third time. Then suddenly he stops.
Suppressing a gasp, I see a man lying in the forest. Damien. Gabriel’s shot has found him. Wounded him. Killed him?
I take a few steps toward him, and the leaves crunch under me. But Gabriel’s entire attention is fixed on Damien.
“This time, I really got you, motherfucker,” he says with an evil glint. “Say goodbye to your little pet. You’re going to die, and so will she.”
My heart beating wildly, I step closer to the man lying on the ground. Damien. Oh, God, it’s Damien. But he’s still breathing slightly, his eyes fixed on me, and I can’t read the expression in them. Fear? Anger? Love? Guilt?
It is guilt. Guilt, mingling with a deep love that makes my own heart ache. There’s a little anger laced in it, a touch of something dark and dangerous that thrills me, that makes me want to submit to him, to ask him to punish me.
But I’m brought back to the moment as Gabriel, who’s standing between the two of us, still unaware of my presence, cocks his gun, aiming for Damien’s heart.
Before he can pull the trigger, I leap toward him and feel the satisfying push of my knife penetrating his back. I shove it back out, noticing the blood spurting from his wound, then force it in again and again, losing count of all the stab wounds.
He doesn’t react at first. I don’t know how many stab wounds it takes for the shock of what has just happened to sink in. He staggers backward, choking wordlessly, his throat strangling with his own blood. Then he crumples to the ground, still groaning, still thrashing.
I crouch beside him as his body twitches, the lifeforce slowly draining from him into the cold ground below. Then I bring down my knife again, this time to etch out a design in his skull as he stares up at me in silent horror.
The sign of the Devil. The sign I know Damien would have wanted to mark him with. I feel a moment’s pride at knowing I’ve successfully carried out his plan.
It takes only a moment, and then I’m hurrying to Damien, my heart constricting once more with panic, and nearly cry out when I see the pool of blood staining his white button-down.
I kneel down and quickly press my hands on the wound, vaguely remembering how I once accidentally kept myself from bleeding out by doing the same thing.
He looks up at me, his face contorted with pain that he clearly tries to disguise from me.
“My brave little darling,” he murmurs, bringing a weak hand up to stroke my cheek. “Brave Seraphina.”
“Please don’t speak,” I sob. “Please. Where’s your cell phone? I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“Logan,” he mouths.
I place his own hands on the gaping wound in his stomach and fumble through his pockets, finally finding the phone. I hesitate to call the ambulance in spite of his request, but I know that even if it saves him, it will only be to put him behind bars. He needs Logan to cover this up.
Biting down on my anxiety, I turn the phone toward him, and his finger tremblingly puts in the code. Then I find Logan’s number and call him, my heart racing.
“Yeah?”